Labor Secretary Marty Walsh visited Tesla CEO Elon Musk Sunday at the company’s factory in Austin, Texas, as the Biden administration looks to reverse inflation caused largely by a rise in energy prices and auto industry supply problems.
Musk relocated Tesla’s corporate headquarters from California to Texas in 2021, and Walsh’s tour of the facility comes ahead of its April grand opening, according to Axios. The trip, though not open to the press, represents a potential thawing in the relationship between the world’s largest electric vehicle producer and the Biden administration.
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Axios’s Mike Allen reports that Walsh and Musk met for 75 minutes and discussed “inflation, American innovation and, of course, job creation in Texas.”
Upon being questioned about the trip, White House officials referred the Washington Examiner directly to the Department of Labor, which did not respond to comment by press time. Walsh was in town ahead of his Monday remarks at South by Southwest.
President Joe Biden has kept Tesla and Musk at arm’s length, despite the president’s very public efforts to electrify the nation’s federal, commercial, and personal fleets, and has only publicly mentioned the company once in his first 14 months in office.
“Since 2021, companies have announced investments totaling more than $200 billion in domestic manufacturing here in America,” the president said during a White House EV event in February. “From iconic companies like GM and Ford building out new electric vehicle production to Tesla, our nation’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer, to innovative younger companies like Rivian building electric trucks or Proterra building electric buses.”
The president’s comments came after Musk publicly attacked Biden for being “unable” to mention Tesla by name while touting his administration’s green energy initiatives, but White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the comments were not meant to convey a shift in administration policy.
“We all know that Tesla is a major producer of electric vehicles,” Psaki stated during a White House press briefing. “Certainly, the electric vehicle industry is one that we feel is a huge opportunity for the United States to move towards our clean energy goals and objectives, and a range of automobile makers are a part of that effort.”
While Musk does hold billions in federal contracts through SpaceX, leaked emails between an executive at United Launch Alliance, a core SpaceX competitor, and a top aerospace industry lobbyist in 2021 shed light on a coordinated effort to sour the Biden administration’s relationship with Musk.
Throughout the emails, ULA Vice President Robbie Sabathier outlined SpaceX’s ties to the Trump administration and pattern of anti-labor union practices to Hasan Solomon, a lobbyist at the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Solomon repeatedly told Sabathier he would relay her concerns and requests directly to the White House.
Despite the anti-Musk lobbying campaign, NASA awarded SpaceX another $2.9 billion contract in April of 2021.
Yearly inflation rose to 7.9% in February, which the White House attributed largely to a 3.5% increase in energy prices and semiconductor supply shortages in the auto industry.
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“About half of the year-over-year headline inflation was due to energy, vehicle-related price increases, and pandemic-affected services,” Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers said in a statement. “Car prices rose slightly in February. Used cars, new cars, auto parts, and car rentals together added 2 basis points to monthly core CPI inflation in February. On average in 2019, cars subtracted from monthly core CPI inflation.”
